Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Debate between Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Lord Goodman of WycombeFriday 6th February 2026
(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill 2024-26 View all Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 112-IX(a) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Ninth Marshalled List) - (6 Feb 2026)
Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)
I apologise to the noble and learned Lord if he has already answered the question about my amendment. I would be grateful if he would clarify his view of Amendment 113 in relation to the code.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
If that is a reference to whether there should be the affirmative rather than the negative procedure, may I take it away? That seems a reasonable request. May I get back to the Committee on that?
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Debate between Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Lord Goodman of WycombeFriday 23rd January 2026
(4 weeks, 2 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill 2024-26 View all Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 112-VII(a) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Seventh Marshalled List) - (22 Jan 2026)
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
If the noble Lord will let me finish, then he can come at me. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, refers to the question of wrong diagnoses. We will come to that in the group that starts with Amendment 71; I do not want to go into it now. However, we are dealing here with a terminal diagnosis, with two doctors and a panel who have approved it. Doctors are not perfect, of course, but this is very much a safeguarded measure.
I apologise for not taking the noble Lord’s intervention straight away.
Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)
Imagine I were a poor person who went before the panel and opted for an assisted death, but said, “Were I rich, I would not do this; I would take my chance on the diagnosis being wrong”. If the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, was passed, I would surely be ineligible, so her amendment is meaningful. If the noble and learned Lord believes that one should be able to choose an assisted death if one is poor, that is one thing, but, as my noble friend Lord Deben argued, one should be protected from having to choose it because one is poor. That is the difference.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
The way the noble Lord has put the question to me means that, plainly, this would be because of the illness, would it not? I want an assisted death because the illness is going to kill me. That seems quite a bad example.